Holy Dominion
|mention = |allies = Honorable New Britain Company |enemies = Empire of New Britain Isles Grand Alliance "Los Diablos del Norte" }} The Holy Dominion was a theocracy located in what would have been Central America. The Dominions leader is also its religious leader and is known as His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World. It's former capital was in the Valley of Mexico, it's current capital is Nuevo Granada. The Dominion was mentioned by Harvey Jenks, but he provided no details to the Grand Alliance. When speaking with Walter Billingsly, Jenks was confident that Saan-Kakja was not affiliated with the Dominion, which seemed to be a Roman Catholic theocracy. The Dominion had an ambassador to the Empire of New Britain Isles by the name of Don Hernan DeDivino Dicha. The flag of the Holy Dominion is described thus: Captain Blas-Ma-Ar, "... An' all their troops flaags are the same, see. That red field with the ruff sideways 'X' on 'em in gold - just like the sails on their warships." Hb. p 59 History The Dominion was founded by the crew of Spanish Acapulco galleon "Nuestra Senora de La Quezon", transferred in Destroyermen's world somewhere in 1681. After the transfer, they established their presence in Central America, by conquering and converting local Indian tribes (whose ancestors were transferred centuries before them). During the expansion phase, the society and religion of Dominion - initially catholic - were influenced by the local Mesoamerican cults. This lead to the formation of current Dominion religion. Sometimes in late 1700s - early 1800s, the Dominion came into contact with Empire of New British Isles. The initial contact was relatively peaceful, and established limited relations between two nations. During this time, the Empire started to import Dominion's womens (as "indentured servants") to improve the initially bad demography. After 1840s, there were at least several military conflicts between the Dominion and Empire over the colonial expansion of both sides in North America. In 1840s the Dominion came into contact with a group of Americans, transferred from 1847. The initial contact was hostile, and the prolonged warfare erupted for a long time. It is known that the old capital city of Dominion in valley of Mexico was at some point invaded by the 1847's americans, which lead to the transfer of capital to the Central America. In some unspecified moment, the Dominion came into contact with the Republic of Real Peoples. By the 1940s the Dominion became one of the greatest powers of Destroyermen's world, controlling large territories and population numbered millions in South, Central and North America. Geography The Dominion controlled vast territories in South America, Central America and also North America and Carribean. For the territorial size and number of population, they are probably second only to the Grik Empire. The most important geographic asset of the Dominion is El Paso de Fuego - the natural (supposedly) passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans located where Costa Rica exits in our Central America. Plagued with strong currents it is passable at only certain times and sailing ships need steam powered tugs, but still allow the Dominion to quickly transfer ships and cargo between Atlantic and pacific, greatly improving their logistic capabilites. The existence of El Paso de Fuego considered to be a great state (and/or church) secret: the Imperials have no idea that this passage even existed, despite centuries-long contact with Dominion. Society The Dominion is a totalitarian theocracy, with a religious leader - His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World (more known as Dom's Pope) - formally a head of state. In truth the Dominion Pope rules in seclusion and accordance with the theology of the Dominion, the Pope is kept constantly inebriated with drugs and alcohol to keep him connected to the mortal world, and thus the real power are in hands of higher priests, known as Blood Cardinals. The Dom's church controlled all higher aspects and functions of Dominion internal and external policy. Civil Buildings are considered Churchs and Cathedrals. A secular aristocracy is known to exist (it was hinted that initially the Dominion was ruled by secular goverment, which only relatively recently - in a last hundred years - completely succumbed to the religious control). Literature outside of approved spiritual texts are illegal. Religion Dominion Theology is a composite of 16th century Catholicism and Meso-American Religion and can be viewed as having the worst aspects of both. It is Monotheistic, but has incorperated much of the previous pantheon as Saints. Among the more notable tennants of it's theology is the fact that they believe that the blood Jesus shed on the cross needs to be repaid in kind and that God is a stern being who deals in punishment and reward and so must his followers. The Dominion Church practices mass human sacrisfies, and consider painful death as "blessing" to the soul; it was stated that according to Dominon teachings, to "attain ‘godliness", the upper priests must mutilate themselves to death (hovewer, the Imperials suspected that most of Blood Cardinals are actually mutilated AFTER thair natural death). Despite the brutal pressing from the main Dominion Church, there are still a number of covert practitioners of other religions - such as animalistic Jaguaristas - on their territory. Economic Of all great powers of Destroyermen's world, the Dominion currently is the least technologically and industrially developed. The Dominion economic are generally on the level of XVI-XVII century Spain, with widespread slavery, utter lack of scientific development and machine manufacturing. The majority of population is peasants or serfs; it seems that there isn't any bourgeois class, and all industry are state- or aristocracy-controlled. What advanced industry that does exist seems to be dedicated along strictly marshal lines. Still, the Dominion have at least the limited ability to produce primitive steam engines for their ships, which indicated at least the late XVIII-century technological and engineering level. It's currently unclear, for how long the Dominion have steam engines and how effective are Dominion's engineers. A likely possibility is that much of said technology was reverse engineered from examples acquired one way or another from the Empire of the New Britain Isles or the New United States. Armed forces Army The Dominion mantain the large, but outdated and inefficient army. It is composed mainly of Salvadores - the foot soldiers, drawn from peasantry. They are trained to fight in tight formations, marching with the drums, and using muskets and spears, much like the early linear tactics of XVII-century. The Dominion also possessed a numerous and effective cavalry lancer units, but generally used cavalry as battalion-size support forces. The army size is numbered in hundreds of thousands. It is known, that in peacetime army is generally used to mantain order, enforce Pope's will over the population and protect the civilians from the "Great Dragons", that inhabited the central parts of South American continent. The elite army troops of Dominion's army are called Blooddrinkers. They are highly trained infantry and cavalry troopers, fanatically devoted to the Dominion's Pope and Blood Cardinals. Their zealotry led to the believe that a violent death on the battlefield grants them instant access to heaven and that retreat or surrender damns them forever, which made them perfect shock troops. One of the most unique troops that Dominion possessed are the Dragon Monks - the religious order, devoted to the tending and control of the several species of large dinosaurs (generally known as Greater Gragons). Those creatures are considered the personal stable of the Pope, and deployed only by his orders. Giant and terrifying, the Greater Dragons are occasionally used to inflict fear against the enemy, but their effectivness against even primitive firearms are dubious. The Dominion army use a variety of weapons, such as swords, pikes and firearms. The standard Dom's muskets use the miquelet flintlock. Infantry troops used the plug bayonet, that prevented loading and firing with the bayonet attached. Only officers and cavalry used pistols. No rifled weapons of any kind were used in large numbers. The Dominion army possessed a great number of artillery pieces, but their artillery are only smoothbores, designed to fire round shots and grapeshots. There are no explosive shells or shrapnel for filed cannons in Dominion's current arsenal (primitive shells are used in large calibre siege mortars). The Dominion artillery tactics prescribed the use of artillery generally from stationary positions. The usual size of field artillery piece is 9-pdr, but larger cannons are known to exist, up to the 12-inch (305-mm) siege mortars. The officer corps of the army is hereditary and plagued by nepotism; a lot of high ranking officers "served" their positions since childhood (for example, Ghanan Nerino , "served" as a commander of Army of South since he was twelve, and was supposed to pass his position to his eldest son). This often - but not every time - led to general incompetence. Navy Main article - Holy Dominion Navy The Dominion possessed a strong and numerous navy, composed of sail and steam wooden ships-of-the-line and frigates in both Pacific and Atlantic ocean. Air forces The Dominion was, actually the first fraction in Destroyermen's world, that created an air forces of some sort. This was achieved some time before the war with Alliance, by the domestication of so-called Lesser Dragons - large, semi-sentient flying creatures, distantly related to Griks. The Lesser Dragons (also called Grikbirds by the Alliance) were taught to live on Dominion's ships and fortresses and attack the enemy from air, by intimidating the enemy troops and dropping rock on ships. This tactics was moderately effective against Imperials, but not against more modern Alliance military. After the Alliance joined the war, the Lesser Dragons were used in attempts to counter the Alliance aerial superiority, but eventually they proven to be incapable of this. By the end of 1944, the supply of trained Lesser Dragons, available to the Dominion was almost exhausted and the whole program was considered a costly failure. After capturing and converting (as they think so) Fred Reynolds, the Dominion made an attempt to create their own heavier-than-air aircraft's. Due to the covert sabotage of supposedly-converted Reynolds (used as consultant), they didn't achieved much, but probably were able to obtain some basic knowledge about aerodynamic and aircraft designs. It's unlikely that the Dominion (with early-XIX century level of science and industry) really have the ability to produce aircraft's of any kind. Category:Factions Category:Holy Dominion